By Pamela Olivetree
Oh Poppy all alone, do you see what I see? Do you hunger for more, do you yearn to be free?
“Well hello there,” I whispered, gently touching the paper-like head that balanced precariously atop a long, skinny stem, “I certainly did not expect to see something like you in here.’”
It seemed to nod, the bright splash of red peeking out of the thicket in my hedgerow. A poppy. A single, lonely poppy. How in the world did it get here?
In a neighbor’s yard there was a flower garden with some poppies, but with the long distance and all the obstacles in-between, it would be unlikely that a seed just blew this way. Maybe it was carried by a bird, or got caught on the fur of a stray cat?
More importantly though, how did it grow in such a hostile environment? My hedgerow is not a pretty place. It is one of those sore spots I keep meaning to clean up. It’s got trees, thorny shrubs, and of course a lot of weeds. So a poppy growing up in the that mess was a little surprising. It certainly was a determined flower!
Every day as I washed dishes, I saw the poppy outside my window, a teeny-tiny beacon of color in an otherwise long and drab row of sameness. And deep emotions began to take root in me.
I thought of the neighbor’s poppies, and how happy they all seemed huddled together. And also a “field of poppies,” an iconic image of freedom and collective beauty that has been, for centuries, captured in artwork and people’s imaginations.
But for some reason this single poppy in the hedgerow was not invoking the same sense of glory to me. Seeing it there all alone just felt so … sad. While it had the seed of fruitfulness inside it, this flower was not in a place where it could multiply its beauty in like-minded relationships. Even if it dropped its seed on a tiny patch of weed-free soil below, rare as that would be, what was the chance of a baby poppy plant surviving to be anything more than a solitary flower like its parent? A group of poppies, let alone a field of poppies, was not likely to happen in this shady, altogether choking environment.
And so I watched the poppy shine bright for a few days, then slowly one by one it dropped its velvet petals to the ground, eventually leaving only its bare seed pod exposed. That’s how it stands right now, waiting for the heat of the sun to crack it open and drop its precious seed to the rogue wasteland below. I don’t think this pretty red flower will be seen in the hedgerow again. That makes me feel sad.
But to see, and love this little poppy for even a short time was a blessing. My hope is that, somehow, one of its seeds will travel to richer soil, and it will live on again with other poppies.
Or perhaps the poppy is living on again ~ in the telling of its story.
I assure you, except a seed falls into the ground and dies, it abides alone:
but if it dies, it brings forth much fruit. ~ John 12:24
